Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-10-28

COOPERATION.
Something of Its Origin, Ancient and
Recent History.

In one sense cooperation is as ancient
as society. The first tribe that acted to-
gether knew that it was better to do so
than fight singly. Men recognized that
unity was strength before Esop composed
his fable of the bundle of sticks. Nimrod
doubtless knew that two greyhounds hunt
ing together would run down more hares
| than four hunting separately. But the
| hounds ran down the hares for their mas
tiers. The modern co-operator runs down
the hares for himself Cooperation in in
| dustry means the equitable distribution of
all gain among those who earn it. This is
new idea among the working people in
our towns, for the method Of applying it
is scarcely forty years old. The co-opera-
tive idea, as applied to industry, existed
in the latter part of the last century. Am
| belakIa was almost a cooperative town, as
may be read in David Urquhart's Turkey
and Its Resources" So vast municipal
partnership of industry has never existed
since.
The fishers on the Cornish coast carried
out cooperation on the sea, and the min
ers of Cumberland dug ore on the prin
ciple of sharing the profits. The plan has
been productive of contentmert and ad-
vantage. Gruyere is cooperative
cheese, being formerly made in the Jura
mountains, where the profits were equit-
ably divided among the makers. In 1777,
| at DIR. Langford relates in his Century
Of Birmingham Life" the tailors of that
enterprising town set up a cooperative
workshop, which is the earlist in English
record. In France an attempt was made
by Babpuf in 1896 TO establish despotism
of justice and equality by violence, after
the manner of Riehelieu, whose policy
taught the French revolutionists that
force might be remedy. Babpuf was 4
solitary reformer who attempted to es-
tablish philanthropy by killing those who
did not like it. But he, like all co-opera-
tors, was against mendicity and idleness
In France, where no great idea ever dies
the conception Of Bab9uf was taken up by
men who had the genius and persuasion in
them. Them came Morellv, whose i'm
agination had the mathematical quality of
precision, and who defined the social prob
lem thus: "To find that situation in
which it shall be impossible for 4 man to
be depraved or poor" Then St. Simon,
Fourier, Caber Lcroux, and others reset
the scientific idea of social life in lumin-
Gus theories.
England, practical and impartial, acts
on its own ideas and on those of others
which have promise of results in them;
and if it originates few ideas, it realizes
more than any other nation originates
Before we had our Mores and Harringtons,
before even the French mind ran on
schemes of life according to reason, More
wrote his Utopia" in 1916. Harrington
came with his "Oceana" lilo years later.
Excelling both in English practical
genius came the great Quaker, John Bell
ers, the son of Fettiplace Boilers, propos-
ing his famous college of Industry"
whose impress has since been on the minds
of all English community-makers. Con
temporaneous with the French revolution
lists we had Shute Darlington Bishop
of Durham, who surpassed all other Bish-
ops in human sympathy and social sagacity.
He established at Mongewell, in Oxford
shire, the first known cooperative store,
and he, Count Rumford and Sir Thomas
Bernard published in 1895, and for many
years after, plans of cooperative and social
life far exceeding in variety and thorough
n nss any in the minds of persons now liv-
ilg.-J. Hoiyoake, IN the Fortnightly Rerier.